Saturday 30 January 2010 12.00 EST
First published on Saturday 30 January 2010 12.00 EST

As a fact-finding mission for Sir Alex Ferguson, this was a convenient chance to assess upcoming Carling Cup final opponents Aston Villa, as well as cast an eye over an Old Trafford defender of the future, Chris Smalling. The Manchester United manager looked so spectacularly relaxed he would appear not to be remotely worried about either.

But in Gabriel Agbonlahor, Aston Villa possess a striker capable of hurting anyone. He ripped up the concerns over his team's recent toothlessness and tossed them into the bin. And so ended a four-match scoreless and winless sequence, much to the satisfaction of Martin O'Neill. "To win is a big boost for us," he said.

The game hinged on a spell five minutes before half-time in which Agbonlahor got what O'Neill described as "just deserts" for his efforts recently. He displayed the nous to meet Stilian Petrov's swirling cross with an instinctive cushioned header. It was a frustrating moment for his marker, Smalling, who was not quite as alive to the cross as the England frontman. Up until then the defender had shown enough composure and quality to earn some satisfied smiles from his new manager-to-be in the directors' box.

"Congratulations to Agbonlahor as Smalling was favourite to get it," Roy Hodgson said. "With experience that wouldn't happen again."

Villa's second came along almost immediately. Carlos Cuéllar teed up Agbonlahor, who twirled away from Brede Hangeland and bent the ball deliciously past Mark Schwarzer. It was so classy, even Arsène Wenger would have been hard-pressed to fail Villa on the aesthetics test.

Fulham, without a league win since they embarrassed Manchester United six weeks ago, felt like a double decker had hit them. "Up until that two-goal period the game looked like a 0-0 in the making," Hodgson said. "But when you go 2-0 down to a team of Aston Villa's quality you are staring defeat in the face."

Fulham were not without chances. Bobby Zamora watched a first-half effort arc over the bar, and teed up Simon Davies for another shot. In the second half, Zoltan Gera showed some signs of life and substitute David Elm had a goal disallowed for a tight – though correct – offside decision.

And so Fulham lost at home for the first time since September. Recent form – hardly helped by a run of consecutive away games in the league and a string of injuries – puts them on a five-game ­losing streak. "Of course I'm concerned," Hodgson said. "Especially as the players you'd hope to help you out of it are unavailable. There is no simple solution but you have got to work through it."

Villa worked themselves out of their little slump. A welcome victory salved the raw nerves that Wenger had touched. O'Neill was content to admit he regretted rising to the bait on the subject of his team's artistic impression. "I just got a bit irked at that moment, but had I reflected I probably wouldn't have mentioned it," he said. Onwards and upwards.

THE FANS' PLAYER RATINGS AND VERDICT

David Lloyd, There's Only One F In Fulham Somebody said Alex Ferguson was here; the last time he was, we won 3-0, so we were hopeful of a repeat. But it was sloppy and we failed lamentably to keep to our standards. The first half was muted from both sides and it was petering out to a half-time stalemate. Then suddenly we're 2-0 down. When we finally got started, it was too late. It's not the fact that we lost that grates, it's that we looked punchless. We could use a couple of new faces to freshen things up.

Jaroslaw Zaba, London Lions We really didn't play that well at all, but we got the points. Defensively we were good, but in attack we were relatively toothless. Milner, Downing and Ashley Young were poor. Ending our goal drought was important, but Agbonlahor scoring was more so – he's a confidence player, so that'll do him good, especially the second goal which was an excellent finish. We do occasionally play direct, but we certainly aren't a long-ball side. In fact, we didn't play well either way today.